- UK health officials have discovered a new coronavirus mutation that has spread rapidly to the UK.
- Neither researchers nor health officials know if the strain is more infectious or if it can complicate things with COVID-19 vaccines and immunity.
- Scientists have said the new strain actually involves 17 different genetic changes, which affect most of the peak protein the virus uses to infect cells.
- Antibodies created after infection or vaccination are targeted to the ear protein, so any significant change in this protein may affect the immunity of COVID-19.
Health officials in the UK announced on Monday that a new strain of coronavirus had been discovered in Britain and that it had spread rapidly. “We have currently identified more than 1,000 cases with this variant mainly in the south of England, although cases have been identified in almost 60 areas of different local authorities,” Health Secretary Matt told the House of Commons Hancock. “We don’t know to what extent this is due to the new variant, but regardless of its cause, we need to take swift and decisive action that is unfortunately absolutely essential to controlling this deadly disease while the vaccine is being deployed.”
A new report provides us with more details about the brief history of this new mutation.
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“This variant involves a set of mutations that include an N501Y mutation in the motif binding to the Spike protein receptor that the virus uses to bind to the human ACE2 receptor,” said the UK COVID-19 Genomic Consortium .
This is not the first new coronavirus mutation to be widely reported. The D614G strain is the dominant version worldwide and is believed to have fueled the pandemic. The mutation was derived from the Wuhan strain and soon took over the world. Many studies say that the D614G mutation made the virus more infectious because it can bind more efficiently to human cells. The Cluster 5 mutation is the mink mutation found in Denmark, which was thought to have acquired means to bypass neutralizing antibodies such as those caused by vaccines. These claims have not yet been fully verified.
The UK is leading the world in controlling coronavirus mutation, The Washington Post reports. High-speed sequencers that can study samples from thousands of patients give the Genomic Consortium an advantage over others. Laboratories in the UK identified the mutations in late September. In December, it was found that more than 1,100 people had been infected with the mutated version. Hancock was notified of the new strain on Friday and meetings were held over the weekend.
British researchers were surprised by the sudden prevalence of the N501Y version. “This lineage emerged pretty quickly,” Nick Loman said The mail. A professor of microbial genomics at the University of Birmingham, Loman, revealed that the number of different mutations was staggering. The variant had 17 mutations, most in the segment of the genome encoding the spike protein.
This ear protein is the key that the virus uses to bind to cells and infect them. COVID-19 vaccines will train the immune response to produce antibodies that block the rise, making it virtually impossible to infect cells. In practice, this means that the virus will have an impossible task when it comes down to the lungs from the nose, which will still act as the body’s original point of infection. But if the virus mutates and changes the structure of the tip protein, the vaccines may not be as effective.
It is also important that millions of survivors have neutralizing antibodies in their blood after infection and other components of the immune system trained to remember the coronavirus and defeat it in a future fight. If ear protein can prevent these protections, some people could be re-infected with the new strain.
That said, Loman said there is no evidence that N501Y spreads faster or causes more serious illnesses. It could just be a coincidence that the strain gained so much traction and researchers will have to continue to study its evolution. The next step is to determine if the strain is more infectious and scientists are already conducting experiments in laboratories.
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The mail refers to two new coronavirus studies that highlight the potential for mutations. In one case, a UK patient died after the coronavirus mutated during a long illness, responding to antibodies from plasma transfusion. A different study says that mutations can make the virus more infectious in response to “immune selection pressure” and that genetic changes in the virus are becoming more frequent. However, these studies have not been peer-reviewed.
Although researchers familiar with the new coronavirus mutations have begun to reveal more details about the strain after Hancock’s statements Monday, there are still many things that are not known about this version. More research will be needed to determine whether N501Y is a cause for concern or not.
Chris Smith began writing about gadgets as a hobby, and before he knew it, he was sharing his views on technology issues with readers around the world. Whenever he doesn’t write about gadgets, he fails to stay away from them, even though he tries desperately. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.